AUGUSTA, Maine (WABI) - Lawmakers on the Labor and Housing Committee met Wednesday with Maine's Department of Labor Commissioner, Laura Fortman.
Fortman acknowledged the issue in the state unemployment system but says assistance is on the way.
Fortman says their goal from the beginning of all this was to get benefits out to Mainers as quickly as possible. And, they are making improvements in the department to continue to do that.
In the coming weeks, the Department of Labor is expecting to hire 138 new employees.
L.L. Bean is stepping up to help interview and screen those employees. However, it could take up to three months to fully train the new staff.
Since March 15, more than 100,000 unemployment claims were filed, compared to 35,000 in 2019.
Fortman says her staff is working around the clock to work through their caseload as quickly as possible.
She told lawmakers she understands that there has been a lot of frustration from Mainers trying to seek assistance.
"The challenge with the callback is that if you're using the same group of people whether they're answering the phone, that's how we work on Saturdays is to try and make those callbacks where people have left messages in the customer messaging portal. But, were open to looking at other ways of handling that as well,” explained Fortman.
Fortman also said the application process has been difficult, with some people even being hung up on, while on the phone.
"Some of the hang-ups I believe were caused when we were having those system problems, and as I said, the Maine OIT folks worked 24 hours a day over the course of three solid days to try and resolve those issues,” said Fortman.
Fortman believes that's now been fixed.
More than $200 million dollars has been distributed to 70,000 Mainers since Governor Mills imposed her stay-at-home order.
To hear that briefing in its entirety visit: https://ift.tt/3b6vltj.
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May 07, 2020 at 05:15AM
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Lawmakers hear from Maine labor commissioner on flaws within the unemployment system - WABI
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